Consultants and Staff

Delegates

Aiyoung Choi

Women Cross DMZ
USA

Born in Korea during World War II and raised in Shanghai, Taiwan, and Japan, Aiyoung came to the United States for college and has made New York City her home. Originally a painter and sculptor, she became an entrepreneur, teacher, editor, and also worked in human resources and public relations. She became a consultant to non-profit grassroots organizations in the City, and also served on various boards of directors including Asian Americans for Equality, New York Women’s Foundation, and Korean American Family Service Center. In 2015 she crossed the demilitarized zone from North Korea to South Korea with Women Cross DMZ and currently serves on its Steering Committee.

Alice Nderitu

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
Kenya

Alice Nderitu is a pioneer in the field of peacebuilding and violence prevention. She has served as Commissioner with the Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission and as a Founding Member of the Uwiano Platform for Peace, which was pivotal in preventing violence during the 2013 Elections in Kenya. She is a Senior Advisor and as Lead Mediator for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, is widely published as an author and academic and has developed Kenya’s only curricular training manual for teachers on the topic of inclusion and conflict prevention. She was named a Woman Peace Maker Of the Year by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, was awarded the Global Pluralism Award, and was the recipient of the Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue.

Altaa Noogsoi

Blue Banner NGO
Mongolia

Altaa is a Professor in the School of International Relations and Public Administration at Mongolian National University and is a board member at Blue Banner NGO in Mongolia. Blue Banner NGO collaborates with other NGO’s and government authorities in exercising public oversight over Mongolia’s law banning nuclear weapons — a cause of great interest to Alta. Blue Banner has also organized conferences centering on the elimination of nuclear threats in Northeast Asia.

Ann Patterson

Peace People
Northern Ireland

Ann Patterson works to provide counseling and support for families from divided communities. During the peace process in Northern Ireland, Ann worked with imprisoned paramilitaries from both sides, preparing them to enter into peace talks. She co-founded Peace People, a pacifist movement that played a critical role in promoting the Good Friday Agreement and advancing the peace process in Northern Ireland. Ann has since acted as an independent observer in numerous countries in conflict and lives in Northern Ireland.

Ann Wright

Veterans for Peace
USA

Ann served in the US Army and the US Diplomatic Corps. She resigned in 2003 with the rank of colonel in opposition to the US war on Iraq after 13 years of active duty and 16 years in the army reserves. Ann co-founded the Freedom Flotilla Coalition in 2010, which is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from all over the world working together to end the blockade of Gaza. She has co-authored a book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” which focuses on those who risked their career and safety speaking out against the US invasion of Iraq. Ann crossed the demilitarized zone from North Korea to South Korea with Women Cross DMZ in 2015.

Charlotte Lind

Operation 1325
Sweden

Charlotte is a representative of Women for Peace, which advocates for power to women in peace processes. She is an active voice within the Women Peace and Security agenda in Sweden, Turkey and the Middle East. Charlotte also operates the project Women Participation Through the Media. She holds a Master’s Degree in conflict resolution and mediation from Tel Aviv University.

Christine Ahn

Women Cross DMZ
USA

Christine Ahn is Founder & International Coordinator of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War, reunite families and ensure women’s leadership in peace building. She is the co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korea Peace Network. Christine has organized peace and humanitarian aid delegations to North Korea and South Korea, and has addressed U.S. Congress, the United Nations, Republic of Korea National Commission on Human Rights, and the Canadian House of Commons. Her op-eds have been published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, Forbes, and The Nation, and she has been a guest on AM Joy on MSNBC, Anderson Cooper 360, BBC World News, CNN, Democracy Now!, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and NBC Today Show.

Cindy Wiesner

Grassroots Global Justice
USA

Cindy Wiesner is active in U.S. social justice movements and is the National Coordinator of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) as well as a steering committee member of the Climate Justice Alliance. She represents GGJ on the International Council of the World Social Forum, and advises for the new Liberation Fund. Cindy has organized with HERE Local 2850, People Organizing to Win Employment Rights San Francisco, and generationFIVE. She was the Leadership Development Director of the Miami Workers Center and represented them nationally at the US Social Forum, where she was also co-chair of the national outreach working group. Cindy is originally from Los Angeles and is of Salvadoran, Colombian and German descent and is Queer. She is based in Miami, FL.

Erica Fein

Win Without War
USA

Erica Fein is the Advocacy Director at Win Without War. In this capacity, she engages with policymakers in Congress, the Executive Branch, the NGO community, the media, and grassroots partners to advance the organization’s progressive foreign policy and national security agenda. Previously, she served as Director of Government Affairs and Nuclear Weapons Policy Director at Women’s Action for New Directions, where she led campaigns to limit the excessive US nuclear weapons arsenal. Erica holds an MA from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been published and quoted in several media publications.

Grace Lee

SFU Dialogue Centre
Canada

Grace Lee is the Programs and Events Officer at the Simon Fraser Institute for Dialogue. Grace has a BA in Communication from Simon Fraser University and experience in Digital PR and Corporate Events. She is responsible for project managing special dialogues at the Centre including the Centre’s signature programming Jack P. Blaney Award, Bruce and Lis Welch Community Dialogue and the Simons Visiting Chair.

Kalama Niheu

Ohana Koa-Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific
Hawaii/USA

Dr. Kalamaoka`aina Niheu is a Kanaka Maoli physician from Hawaii and a representative for Hawaii and the Pacific to the United Nations. Born on the frontlines of the Hawaii Independence movement, she has been a community advocate throughout her life, most recently helping to establish the Standing Rock Medic Healer’s Council. She is also a main convener for Aha Aloha Aina, a Kanaka initiative for traditional governance, is on the board of Ahahui o Na Kauka (Native Hawaiian Doctor’s Association), and is the Kauka (Doctor) for Onipa’a Na Hui Kalo Traditional Kalo Farmers for Food Sovereignty. Dr. Niheu also works as the Medical Officer on Hokule’a, a traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe.

Katherine Ronderos

LIMPAL COLOMBIA
Colombia

Katherine is the director of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Colombia (LIMPAL COLOMBIA), and works for the implementation of UN resolutions 1325 and 1820 with local women victims of armed conflict. A consultant for UNWOMEN in Colombia, she supports the inclusion of women’s rights and gender perspectives into peace agreements. Katherine has coordinated the Women’s Human Rights Defenders Initiative and consulted for the UN Special Rapporteur on gender-based killings. Katherine holds a Masters in Development Studies. She has published on gendered violence (Oxford University Press), and directed the latest WILPF Colombia research report on women for disarmament.

Kin Chi Lau

Global University for Sustainability
China

Kin Chi Lau is associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. She is a member of the International Board of Peace Women Across the Globe, a founding member of the Global University for Sustainability, and the vice-president of World Forum for Alternatives. Her areas of interest cover cultural studies, contemporary China studies, and comparative literature as well as critical pedagogy and gender studies. In these areas she has published papers extensively, including co-authoring books and producing documentary films on women for peace in China.

Kozue Akibayashi

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Japan

Kozue Akibayashi is the international President of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She is a researcher/activist who has worked on issues of gender and peace, militarism, and demilitarization. She also serves on the steering committee of Women Cross DMZ, and was part of the delegation of 30 international women peacebuilders who crossed the DMZ on the Korean Peninsula in 2015. A Professor at Doshisha University (Kyoto) Kozue teaches gender studies, peace studies and peace education.

Lisa Natividad

Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice
Guam / USA

Lisa Linda Natividad is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Guam and President of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice. An Indigenous daughter of Guahan (Guam) she is a leading voice against the United States’s militarization of her island and an advocate for the exercise of her people’s (Indigenous CHamorus) right to selfdetermination and political decolonization. She joined the 2015 Women Cross DMZ and organized a global women’s demilitarization conference on Guahan in 2009 (with International Network of Women Against Militarism). Lisa has advocated for the Guam Commission on Decolonization before multiple high-level UN committees.

Liz Bernstein

Nobel Women’s Initiative
Canada

Liz Bernstein is the founding Director of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Previously, Liz served as Coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) from 1998 through 2004. Liz participated in the campaign since it began in the early 1990s. She lived in Thailand and Cambodia for 10 years (1986–1996), where she worked with local peace and justice advocacy organizations and co-founded the Coalition for Peace and Reconciliation. In 2005, she coordinated Make Poverty History Canada. Liz currently lives in Ottawa, Canada and is a co-founder of Ecology Ottawa.

Mairead Maguire

Nobel Peace Laureate, Peace People
Northern Ireland

Mairead Maguire was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, with Betty Williams, for her actions to end the political conflict in her native Northern Ireland. Together with journalist Ciaran McKeown they founded Peace People, a movement committed to building a just and peaceful society through nonviolent social action. She travels regularly to Israel and Palestine to work with peace activists in the region, as well as other conflict areas.

Margaret (Jade) Sit Tsui

Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA)
China

Dr SIT, Tsui Margaret Jade is associate professor of the Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China at Southwest University. She is board member of Asian Regional Exchanges for New Alternatives (ARENA), and also coordinator of a development organization, China Social Services and Development Research Centre (CSD). As well, she is one of the founding members of the Global University for Sustainability. Her research areas include rural reconstruction, globalization, gender and development, and cultural studies.

Margo Okazawa-Rey

Women for Genuine Security
USA

Margo Okazawa-Rey is a Professor at Fielding Graduate University, Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University and holds a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her primary areas of research, activism, and publication have been militarism, armed conflict, and violence against women, examined intersectionally. Margo was a group worker with Black and Latino boys, a feminist teacher of literacy with women of color in recovery, and a community activist in Boston. She is a founding member of the Combahee River Collective and her lifetime of teaching, activism, and scholarship has been deeply shaped by its work. Margo serves on the International Boards of Du Re Bang in South Korea, PeaceWomen Across the Globe and the Board of Highlander Research and Education Center.

Mary-Wynne Ashford

Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Canada

Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, MD, PhD. is a retired family doctor with a specialty in palliative care. She is a past Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and past President of Physicians for Global Survival (Canada). She has been an international speaker and writer on the health consequences of nuclear war since 1985. She led two medical delegations to the DPRK in 1999 and 2000. Her award-winning book, Enough Blood Shed: 1-1 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War, has been translated into Japanese and Korean. She has received the Queen’s Medal on two occasions and is an Honorary Citizen of the City of Victoria, Canada.

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza

Global Network of Women Peacebuilders
USA

Ma. Victoria “Mavic” Cabrera-Balleza is the Founder, CEO and International Coordinator of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP). As a Women, Peace and Security expert, Mavic initiated the national action planning process on UN resolution 1325 in her country, Philippines, and has authored several publications on the implementation of the WPS resolutions. Mavic has supported numerous countries to build and implement their WPS national action plans and is a member of the ‘Global Funding Board of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund’, a funding mechanism for grassroots women’s organizations around the world.

Medea Benjamin

CODEPINK
USA

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide. She recently published Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Olga Maltseva

Dr. Olga Maltseva is coordinator of the public organization Dialogue of Cultures, which advocates for inter-cultural learning, as well as a member of the Russian Union of Journalists. Dr. Maltseva is interested in Korean unification — interviewing Kim Jong-Il twice in 2002, as well as initiating the international Russian-Korean photo exhibition during Kim Jong-Il’s visit to the Russian far east in 2003. Dr. Maltseva is the author of more than 30 scientific articles as well as two books based on her travels through the Korean Peninsula. She holds a PhD in Politology and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communications and Media School of Arts and Humanities FEFU.

Patti Talbot

The United Church of Canada
Canada

Patti Talbot has served as national staff of The United Church of Canada for 25 years. The United Church of Canada was one of the first ecumenical unions in the world to bring together major Christian denominations into one body. She currently leads the United Church’s Global Partnerships team with direct responsibility for partnerships in northeast Asia. Born in Japan of missionary parents who lived and worked among Korean residents, she has a lifelong commitment to a vision of peace with justice in the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia. The United Church has a long-lasting commitment to mission, health, education for girls, and leadership development and training in Korea. She lives in Toronto with her husband and their teenage son.

Rebecca Johnson

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
UK

Rebecca Johnson is a feminist peace activist, and an original co-chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), where she served as president to mobilise civil society and governments to achieve the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Rebecca’s campaigning for peace has focused on the banning of unnecessary nuclear weaponry and she has been published widely on security, disarmament and feminist issues. She coordinated Greenpeace’s campaign for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, set up the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and has campaigned against conflict with multiple organizations. ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and Rebecca hopes to share the award with campaigners around the world who work for disarmament, peace and justice.

Shawk Alani

Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq
Iraq / Canada

Shawk Alani is a feminist activist and the Executive Assistant at the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, which shelters women survivors of gender-based violence in postinvasion Iraq. She is a graduate student at Simon Fraser University writing on personal narrative in Iraqi literature. Her community organizing work has focused on the power of storytelling for immigrant and refugee youth as a tool for social justice. She is the founding member of the Iraqi Narratives Project, which archives oral history interviews about the journeys of Iraqis as they lived through wars, sanctions, dictatorship and the 2003 invasion and occupation to reach their new lives in the diaspora.

Shawn Kim

One Heart for Justice
USA

Shawn is the president of One Heart for Justice, a voluntary organization established in 2014 to support the families of the victims of the South Korean Sewol ferry accident. Shawn and members of One Heart for Justice are active locally, and are passionate about supporting indigent young adults through food drives and other efforts to help distribute backpacks and Christmas trees. Since then, Shawn (through One Heart for Justice) has been educating Korean Americans and Americans about Korean history, including efforts to help achieve justice for “Comfort Women.” Her community-based organization has been actively participating in efforts to call for a Peace treaty between the United States and North Korea to formally end the Korean War.

Simone Chun

Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea
USA

Dr. Simone Chun received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and currently teaches at Northeastern University. She has over 20 years of teaching and research experience, including serving as an Associate in Research at the Harvard University Korea Institute. Dr. Chun serves on the Steering Committee for the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea, and is a member of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korean Peace Network. She regularly contributes to various media outlets and has presented widely on inter-Korean relations. As a researcher and activist, Dr. Chun strives to create meaningful engagements between South Korean activists, scholars and NGOs worldwide.

Wang Xuan

Research Centre of Biological Warfare in WW II
China

Wang Xuan is the Director of the Research Center of Biological Warfare in WW II, as well as the chair of the committee of the NGOs of the Japanese Biological Warfare Victims in China. A graduate of Zhejiang University, Wang also holds an ME from Tsukuba University in Japan. Wang is a leader in the civil rights movement for Japanese biological warfare victims. Beginning her fight in 1995, when she launched an investigation into the plague in her village caused by Japanese biological warfare, Wang brought about the first ever confirmation in court of the Japanese army’s biological warfare in WW II and the disasters it had wreaked on local people. Wang was one of 81 Chinese women (among 1000 women in the world) nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yifat Susskind

MADRE
USA / Israel

Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international organization that works to advance women’s human rights. Yifat has been a leading global advocate for gender justice for more than 20 years. She partners with women’s rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa to create programs in their communities that meet urgent needs and create lasting solutions. She leads MADRE’s work to combine grant making, capacity-building and legal advocacy to secure women’s rights, both in policy and in practice. Yifat’s writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and The Huffington Post.

Consultants and Staff

Deann Borshay Liem

Filmmaker
USA

Deann Borshay Liem is Producer/Director of the Emmy Award-nominated documentary, First Person Plural, and the award-winning film, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee, both of which premiered nationally on PBS on the POV series. A Sundance Institute Fellow and recipient of the Women, Peace, and Security Fellowship from the San Francisco Film Society, Deann has produced, executive-produced, and consulted on numerous award-winning films. Her film, Memory of Forgotten War, was broadcast nationally on PBS stations. In 2015, (with Women Cross DMZ) Deann took a film crew and covered the group’s journey from North to South Korea, which is the basis of the work-in-progress documentary, Crossings.

Jacquelyn Wells

Women Cross DMZ
USA

Jacquelyn Wells is the Communications Coordinator at Women Cross DMZ and a Korean American adoptee. She is a Northeastern University graduate, and currently lives in NYC. She started working as a volunteer for Women Cross DMZ in late 2015. In addition to her work with WCDMZ, Jacquelyn is an entrepreneur and owns her own jewelry company, Oohjacquelina, is a musician, Airbnb super host, and a Registered Yoga Teacher.

Jim Choi

Mu Films
USA

Jim Choi is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and sound recordist. He co-directed and shot Defender about San Francisco’s public defender Jeff Adachi. Jim also directed and filmed Changing Season, for which he won Best Documentary Director and Don’t Lose Your Soul, an intimate profile of Anthony Brown and Mark Izu, founders of the Asian American Jazz Festival. He also served as the Director of Photography on the IFP Gotham Audience Award winning film, Jake Shimabukuro: Life On Four Strings, and Lost and Found: Legacy of USS Lagarto which garnered an Emmy nomination in the cinematography category.

Katia Gianneschi

Nobel Women’s Initiative
Canada

Katia Gianneschi is a communications specialist in human rights and development. She provides strategic communications advice and develops and produces tools including communications and campaign strategies, news releases, op-eds, briefing notes and other communication tools. Katia delivers workshops on media relations, strategic communications and key messages. Katia has provided communications expertise to Oxfam Canada, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Global Partnership for Education, Canadian Council for international Co-operation, Make Poverty History and Amnesty International Canada, among others.

Margaret Gerhart

Women Cross DMZ
USA

Margaret has worked with Women Cross DMZ since 2016, helping to shape and amplify messaging through various print, digital, and video media. Margaret believes design can bridge disciplines to bring optics and voice to marginalized communities and environments for a more sustainable and just future. She is currently a landscape and urban designer at the international planning firm SWA, where she leads the Los Angeles studio’s research for the firm wide think-tank, XL. Margaret holds a BFA in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University and a dual Master of Architecture/Master of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. There, she received the 2016 Anne Fisher Graduate Fellowship for excellence in design and the 2015 AIA Scholarship for leadership.